Measuring Sustainable Ecocentric Views of Young Entrepreneurs with NEP Scale - A Way Forward to Oman 2040 vision

Abstract

Oman’s vision 2040 focuses on four main pillars of People, Economy, Institutions and Environment. Every nation’s economy greatly benefits from its environment, both directly and indirectly. Direct usage is through its use in manufacturing and indirect usage is through the myriad of services it offers. In recent decades, the nature of the environmental concerns facing the world has undergone a major shift. The best defense to sustain the environment is to instill awareness among the youth. This research attempted to initiate this defense mechanism through an assessment of environmental paradigms among budding Omani entrepreneurs. Researchers adopted an area sampling design to select respondents from designated food service-sectors. Data collection was administered through a structured questionnaire using NEP scale focused on five facets such as Reality of Limits to Growth, Anti-anthropocentrism, Fragility of Nature’s Balance, Rejection of Exemptionalism and Possibility of an Eco-Crisis. The analysis included Descriptive statistics, student’s t test, ANOVA and multiple comparison using Tukey HSD test that revealed the impact of respondents’ gender, type of business and location on environmental paradigms to comprehend creative entrepreneurs' willingness to sustain natural resources in support of Oman's Vision 2040. Keywords: Ecocentric views; Young Entrepreneurs; NEP scale; Sustainable Development (SD); Oman Vision 2040